So Far the Reach of Fate
by Servatia
Summary: Thomas wakes up on the floor, hurt but alive. Alone in the world, he flees to a city far away from anything he knows where he can leave it all behind: his dead sister, all the years as her creature, the wife who can't possibly have any love left for him. Finally, he tears his gaze from the past. The future is quick to take over from there.
1. Guttering

_((The city I am going to describe – or the two places in it that I will offer in detail – is very real and one I have seen. These particular places even. Now the thing is, this is the very beginning of the 20th century. I have no idea if the first place was publically accessible at that time and I know for a fact that the second place, the park, to be precise, did not exist for half a century after this story. I don't even know if the city already spanned that far or if it was still only on the other shore of its river._

 _Because of this lack of historical accuracy, I will not give the city's name or any information about the country other than what is in those two descriptions. Should you, despite that, want to guess, please do. I'll let you know if you were right.))_

* * *

 _1\. Guttering_

An agonised groan awoke him. His mind, sluggish and hazy, was assaulted by the smell of blood and a silence so complete it was oppressive. He swallowed drily and remained as he was, on his back on the hard … floor? That thought jerked him to consciousness. He sat abruptly and another groan escaped him when pain shot through his body, his chest, his face. He realised then that the first sound that had roused him must have been his own.

Thomas took a few steadying breaths and looked down on himself. Two dark red stains were on his clothing, and when he brought a shaking hand to his cheek he found it swollen and sticky with drying blood. His mouth was dry, his limbs felt weak and … where in the world was Lucille? Where was Edith?

For a couple of minutes, trying to remember was all he could do. He managed, somewhat. Lucille had attacked him. Of course she had. She had wanted him for herself, hadn't been able to bear the thought that he loved someone else. And he did. Oh, how he did.

And Edith … was that a memory? How could it be? He saw flashes of a fight to the death, saw Lucille, what sanity had remained in her chased away by grief and jealousy. He remembered Lucille looking at him, but he couldn't speak to her. He remembered watching her die by Edith's hand and feeling both sorrow and a wild, harsh satisfaction. He remembered … he remembered Edith, this wonderful woman, approaching him, her hand on his cheek but also not there, not there enough for him to feel it. And now he was here.

Had he been dead? No. It didn't work like that and Thomas's feet were too firmly on the ground to believe that something had brought him back from something so final. Unless even hell preferred to spit him back out. He'd probably been very close. Considering his injuries, he still was.

Edith would be gone. Lucille definitely was. And Thomas needed to make a choice.

What he wanted to do was finish the job for Lucille. It would be the most painless, cleanest solution. Edith would be a widow, free to live and love and forget him. But he knew this wasn't what he was going to do. He was too selfish for something like that. He would try to survive this. If he was to die, it was just as well, but he didn't need to speed it.

What Thomas needed to do was get down to the kitchen. It held liquor, and while he didn't drink it, it was the best disinfectant they had.

The first challenge was standing. The two injuries in his chest soaked fresh blood to his shirt as he moved. It looked like a lot, but blood always looked like more than it was. Lucille must have missed his heart very narrowly indeed, considering where the wound was. He wasn't sure if he should consider himself lucky.

On the way, Thomas ditched his shirt. He poured clear liquor over his cheek, his chest, used a relatively clean cloth to cleanse the wound. He only stopped when he thought the pain would make him pass out again.

Before he could decide what he was to do next, Thomas heard a sound. Voices. He held his breath and listened. Not Edith. Not even Alan McMichael. Maybe they'd help him. A hiss jerked him up from his chair, and he cried out in pain. Before him, black as death, stood Lucille.

And just like that, Thomas was calm. He had lost his mind. 'Can't you leave me alone? At least now?'

'They will hang you!' Her voice was strange, distorted, but unmistakeably hers. 'Hide. Hide!'

And Thomas hid. As fast as he could, he dragged himself back upstairs. The house had secrets that villagers looking for his body were unlikely to uncover. So he crawled like a rat out of sight and collapsed. He awoke with a fever, his only company the ghost of the woman who had – he understood that now – owned him and refused to share.

Suddenly, irrationally, he remembered the waltz with Edith, the candle they'd held and that somehow hadn't gone out. Now he was the candle and his flame was guttering in the forces pulling at him.

He still wouldn't kill himself, no. He'd keep himself alive. He couldn't keep food but he drank water. After a couple of days, the villagers stopped searching for him. Lucille had wanted to kill him. She kept near him even now, just to taunt him, proving that any excuse he made for her was nothing more than another lie. He would not do her the favour to reunite himself with her. So he would live, if only out of spite, and he would die away from her and this place, damning her to an eternity of loneliness, roaming the fields when the house had sunken into the clay for all he cared.


	2. Nowhere Far Enough

_2\. Nowhere Far Enough_

It hadn't been easy to convince Alan to go home. The truth was, Edith wanted to be alone and certainly not around Alan. His appearance had been fortuitous, sure. She'd be dead, had he not come. (Or maybe, a voice in her head said, maybe not. He'd protected Alan from Lucille, he'd intended to protect her and had died trying.)

At first, forgetting was not an option. There was an investigation, there were people crawling about Allerdale Hall, looking for evidence the elements and the clay hadn't managed to destroy. They found nothing and turned to the most likely source: Edith. So she talked. About Lucille. About the three women who had been less lucky than her. About the poison in the tea which her sister-in-law had so caringly prepared. She was wide-eyed and sounded naïve, and when all was said and done, she could at least trust that Thomas wasn't going to pay for the crimes his sister had conceived and used him for by being buried without a ceremony and with only Lucille and other criminals for company in his grave.

After this, she knew Alan believed she would come home. But Edith found herself deeply reluctant to return to America. She had to decide her own fate, without Alan's guidance, no matter how well-meant it was. So she followed the ghosts. She went to Edinburgh, she went to London, and then returned to Cumbria. She would sell Allerdale Hall. There was no-one else who could inherit it.

Only that, it turned out, was impossible. Apparently, the body of her husband hadn't been found. Instead, he had come to the village of Thrushwood, very much alive, had sold his estate, and taken the meagre coin it sold for with him. Where to, no-one knew. The not-so-helpful clerk looked at her over the rim of his glasses. 'Hard to get a divorce through without him being anywhere. You were married in the States. Maybe you can … ah, sit it out.'

In the end, it didn't matter. Edith sent a letter to Alan, informing him of this new development. She listened into herself, asked herself what she felt. The answer wasn't a simple one. Fear. Betrayal. Relief. Deep sadness. Which one would prevail, she couldn't tell. What she did know was that if Thomas had wanted to be anywhere near her, he wouldn't have run so far away without leaving her a note of some sort.

So Edith ran in turn. Into the blue. She travelled to the continent, to the one missing city: Milan. And then, on a whim, very much, she boarded a train that carried her through almost all of Europe. And when she emerged, it was into a world so different that she would be able to forget. At least, for a while. Gold glinted from the roofs throughout the city, and around every bend, in every hidden corner, something she had never seen before presented itself to her. The city had her in its thrall in no time at all.


	3. Down Below

_3\. Down Below_

Thomas threw the window in his small apartment open and took a deep breath. He was close to one of the botanical gardens, and the morning air was even starting to have some warmth. He would be eternally grateful to Finlay. The man had found an agent who sold the hellhole he'd lived in and in turn, the agent had planted the idea where he could go in his head. Here, in his distant part of the world, they were extending their so far meagre railway network. They wanted to do it fast, the agent had told him, he had a friend who had something to do with it, and surely a man like Thomas could find a niche for himself in such an endeavour.

Thomas had jumped on the opportunity like a man in a desert on an oasis. He had arrived with sketches he'd made on the journey. And then it had all come differently. He'd chatted up an orthopaedist and was now making designs of a completely different nature. He was earning money, his own, not stolen from cold, dead hands. He pushed that thought away. With a sigh, he moved from the window to the mirror and checked his reflection. The scar under his left eye was still ugly and disfiguring, but he was glad that it wasn't more than that. After a few days, his face had been so swollen he couldn't see through his left eye. He'd feared for his sight, but once the swelling had receded, his worry had proven unfounded.

Today, he had for himself. He'd take a walk through the city with its many churches of different confessions and styles, taking in the sheer vastness of it all. Everything here was huge and golden and shining. One day he would leave with an armoury of experiences just his own, with no-one to mar them, to scoff at everything he admired.

Unbidden, he thought of Edith. Oh, she would love this place. He knew this. She had loved London too, when they'd spent their honeymoon there. A dull ache in his soul where his wife used to be made him wonder what would have happened if they'd never gone home.

The thought was moot. He'd been chained to his sister all his life. Only her death had been able to liberate him. Over the past weeks, his grief had turned into a profound sense of relief. It was as if something had been squeezing his chest all his life and only now he could breathe in fully, fill his lungs with the fresh air of this marvellous city that seemed to be out of a fairy tale. He was where Lucille's ghost couldn't follow. She was bound to Allerdale Hall in death as she had been in life. If anyone was foolish enough to live there, they would have to deal with that. Probably, they'd tear down the house. It would be for the best.

Thomas walked past one particularly beautiful church down a steep cobbled road. The individual stones were worn smooth by thousands of feet. If it had rained, he might have ended up in a heap on the ground after some undignified flailing. Even so, the way back up would be laborious. Today, the wound near his heart ached. Not enough to worry him, enough to know he wasn't doing himself a favour. As he reached the end of his descent, his eyes fell on a woman with her blonde hair held up by pins and he froze. Shaking himself, he moved on. Surely, it was just something women did. But then she turned enough to see her profile, and something in Thomas's head stopped working.

He bolted and turned left, running through the first door he saw. Someone shouted after him, but he couldn't stop. Darkness swallowed him and the floor fell away under his feet and Thomas tumbled down what must be a narrow flight of worn stairs.

He gasped for air, winded, and tried to gather his wits. What in the world was _wrong_ with him? Surely, Edith couldn't be here. And if she was, why would _he_ run from _her_? Shouldn't it be the other way round?

Something closed around his arm and whispered to him, the language similar to that of the natives, but strange and so foreign he couldn't tell where one word ended and the next one began. He tried to back away but found himself against a wall. He had _never_ seen a ghost. Well, Lucille, but he'd been ready to dismiss that as the madness that came with being close to death.

A candle approached him, and fear gripped Thomas's heart until he saw that it was being carried by a monk or priest, almost as broad as the corridor, which said more about the passage than about the monk. His expression was angry, but once he bent down to look at Thomas and saw his pitifully frightened face it softened. He said something in gibberish. The language was difficult at the best of times, considering how briefly he had been here, and right now wasn't anywhere near a good time. Thomas shook his head. 'I … I beg your pardon, I didn't understand you, I'm afraid.'

The monk sighed. 'No place for you. Place for dead.' He had a heavy accent, but by the looks of it, he was happy to use what English he had. He wouldn't often have that chance, most likely.

Thomas struggled to his feet. 'Yes. I noticed.' He blinked, trying to see what had touched him. There was nothing. Nothing at all. 'How do I get out?'

The monk pointed. 'Out there. Come.'

Thomas followed meekly, his eyes adjusting to the dark until he saw what made the path so narrow. 'Well, I'll be,' he muttered. 'Is that … are there mummies here?'

'Told you. Place for dead.'

'You did.'

'Dead people sometimes walk around. Don't like strangers that fall on them.'

Thomas was very certain the monk was pulling his leg and would have a good, hearty laugh once he was back out. But even if the corpses did not walk the dark, something had been there. Ghosts were everywhere.

* * *

 _((This is the first location. How you reach it and what it's like may give it away.))_


	4. Ghosts of the Future

_4\. Ghosts of the Future_

To say that Edith liked the park would be quite incorrect. She was drawn to it, had been from the first time she'd been in it. All the wonders of a city so different to anything she knew paled in comparison to it. Every time she was here, she shivered but stayed until she could bear it no longer and fled, back into the bustle of the city proper. The park was usually full of people, families with children, playing, oblivious to the deep sense of _wrong_ it exuded from every tree, every patch of grass, every paving stone.

Today was different. There were only a handful of people there, a group of doctors by the looks of them, except for two that had plain clothing and might be anything at all. One of them, a short, stout man gestured in the direction of the ravine next to the park. The other one, a tall, lean man with a hat, his face hidden by the shadows from the tree above him, gestured in the opposite direction and then skywards, causing the group to laugh. A sensation like a small, blazing sun in her stomach filled her as she thought of Thomas. She thought about the apparition a short time ago. Surely, it couldn't be … Then the group dispersed, most of them ambling past her towards the exit, while he alone turned towards the ravine, his steps gathering speed and purpose.

The ravine. It ran along the park like an open wound. No, not a wound. This wasn't a place for past injuries and ghosts. It was like an omen lay in the air, the chasm a maw with jagged, bloody teeth, ready to gorge itself on not just hundreds of souls but tens of thousands before its greed would be sated. The souls of men and women and children, to be sacrificed to feed the world's madness as well as the voracious gullet in the middle of a living, breathing city. A grave that knew nothing of its purpose yet.

Edith had followed the man to the edge of the ravine. He was peering down through the trees and shook his head. To what question, she wasn't sure. But while she couldn't see his face, she saw his posture, his figure, his every movement, and it threatened to overwhelm her.

She could leave. He was so invested in whatever calculations he was making in his head that he hadn't noticed her. She could pretend this wasn't real. She could face that it was real and still decide to go home without him any the wiser. Alan – she knew this, she could read him like a book – Alan would propose to her, and once she managed to divorce Thomas for abandonment, she could say yes and live a comfortable life with a man she cared about but would never love.

'Thomas.' His name fell from her lips in no more than a whisper, but it had the same impact as if she had screamed. He jumped violently and spun. As if time itself had stuttered to a crawl, she saw the unstable earth crumble just behind him, falling into the depths, and sag where he stood. His arms flew up in an attempt to balance himself as if that could save him. In a split second that stretched into eternity, she reached out, her right hand clawing into the fabric of his coat, and she yanked with every ounce of strength she had. She fell hard on her backside and Thomas landed on top of her, managing to break his fall with his arms on either side of her.

'If you _want_ to die, maybe I should have shoved you,' she barked. The sudden rage she felt surprised her, but such a foolish near-accident warranted a bit of yelling. His sheepish expression soothed her. Somewhat.

Thomas blinked down at her but made no move to stand up, his arms still bracketing her. 'Some crazy people consider filling the ravine. But the costs for such an endeavour outweigh the benefits. By what factor, I can't even fathom. Good gracious, I'd have fallen fifty feet. Better the hat than me.' For a few seconds, he kept staring into her face with a mix of terror and wonder, then his arms gave and he collapsed them both on the cold, hard ground. She was about to say something or hit him someplace that would hurt when she heard an odd sound coming from him. It was a sound she'd never heard him make before. It took her half a minute to realise that he was laughing.

* * *

 _((I've looked into that ravine. If anyone should fall, it would be hard to get them out. There is no actual path down, as far as I know, only dirt and trees. And the park, as I mentioned, isn't that old.))  
_


	5. Eyes Open

_((This one's a bit longer. *coughs innocently*))_

* * *

 _5\. Eyes Open_

It took him a good five minutes to get a grip on himself. Then he managed to at least sit up and gasp out an apology. When his eyes went to the ravine, he burst into fresh laughter until Edith apparently decided it was enough. 'You know what, I don't need this.' She collected herself and started walking away.

Only then his senses kicked in. He scrambled to his feet and reached for her arm. 'Edith, wait,' he said quickly. He saw the expression on her face and let go, raising both hands in surrender. _Like before, at the elevator in the manor, that last time you saw her._ He swallowed. 'I'm sure I know what you want. I won't stand in your way. You will have the divorce papers as soon as I find a lawyer who can write decent English.'

She nodded, her eyes everywhere but on him. She couldn't even face him and he wasn't blaming her. 'Good,' she said at last.

Something in the way she delivered it was not like Edith agreeing with him. It was the same kind of defeat that had been in her when her father had died, the kind with which she had given up her subtle attempts to seduce him when she first had the mind for something other than grief. 'Unless,' he said softly, so softly she could pretend not to hear, 'you don't want that. Which would be very unwise and probably foolish.'

Now, finally, her eyes found his. 'What do you want, Thomas Sharpe?'

What he wanted? To run away. To screw his eyes shut until she was gone, giving him control of the situation rather than make him wait for a rejection that would be the only sensible choice, in his opinion. 'I want things I have no right to ask. Forgiveness. Love. _Your_ love. But I cannot not ask you to give me that or to stay with me.'

'And if I were to offer these things, would you still want them? Or would you push me away just to punish yourself?'

Thomas shook his head. 'I'm not _that_ absurd.' A small smile played around her lips. Not shy but slightly cunning and at the same time warm as the summer sun.

And only a little while later, they were in her hotel room rather than his apartment. It was a mere coincidence that had led them both to the same spot so far away from Cumbria, miles and miles away, and yet, he wondered if something had steered his steps or hers. Hers, if at all, for the only ghost in his life would never have brought him here.

'You know,' she said, bringing him out of his reverie, 'I thought I saw you two days ago at the caves. But when I looked, you were gone.'

Thomas felt the heat in his face. 'I was there. I … ah … ran away. Into the monastery.'

She shook her head. 'Why?'

'I was afraid. How you'd react. This isn't the outcome I'd ever have expected.' He licked his lips. 'I love you, Edith. I have for a long time. Do you … do you think that I could kiss you?'

She smiled, cupping his cheek – the right one, and he was sure she did that intentionally lest she hurt him – and leaned in, leaving only an inch of distance for him to cover. When he did and their lips met, every other thought was chased away. Suddenly she was wearing too much, and so was he, and he moaned softly without even minding and started fumbling at her clothes until she stopped his hands and he froze.

Edith looked at him, her eyes scanning his very soul. 'Thomas … you don't need to do that.'

'Don't … need to! Are you out of your mind?'

'I thought … we only once …'

'Lucille is where she belongs. She'll never get between us again. And I …' He swallowed and pressed his lips against hers, continuing to talk into her mouth, 'I will never allow anyone else to touch me like this again. But you, my love, you … Touch me in any way you can think of anywhere you want to.' He sat back on his chair, his hands meekly in his lap. 'Would you mind …' He cleared his throat. 'Would you mind taking this off for me?'

'You mean …'

'I would see you, Edith. All of you.'

With her eyes fixed on his, she rose and stood before him. A smile played about her lips and she turned her back to him, looking over her shoulder. 'I could use your help.'

Hands shaking, Thomas pulled at the ribbon that held her bodice and opened it. When she made no move to get rid of it already, he peeled her out of her dress and underwear until she stood before him, pale and beautiful. A slight blush had crept up her cheeks, and she reached out to run a thumb over his lips. He sucked it into his mouth for a moment before capturing her hand and kissing it. Then he tugged, pulling her into his arms. 'I have the impression,' he said quietly, 'I am rather overdressed.'

'Do you need help with that, by any chance?'

All Thomas managed was a nod. Her hands, other than his, were steady as she systematically undressed him. Thomas was rock hard by the time they were both naked, and he wanted nothing more than to push her on the bed and bury himself inside her warmth.

But there would be time enough for that. He embraced her, feeling her entire body against his. Another first. One in so many. His hands caressed everywhere he could reach and he savoured her scent as if this was the last time he got a chance when indeed it was the first. That night in the depot he had thought he was in bliss. Now he learned he'd had no idea what bliss was.

Pressing their lips together, he steered her to her bed and somehow, they manoeuvred themselves on it. His hands explored her sides, her breasts, her thighs, and hers were on a journey of their own, up his arms, down the centre of his chest and to his hips. She pulled away a little and caught his hands, intertwining their fingers. 'Those injuries. Do they hurt?'

'No. Well, not often. Sometimes they do if I exert myself too much, but it's getting better.' He narrowed his eyes. 'There is no way we're not doing this because it might twinge a bit. I deserve a lot worse.'

Edith silenced him with a forefinger. 'Later. We'll talk about everything, but later. Right now … right now, I'd like my husband to make love to me.'

Now Thomas did push her on the sheets and opened her legs. He kissed his way down from her collarbone, sucking on each nipple until she squirmed beneath him and the tugging of her fingers in his hair became almost painful. Then he replaced them with his hands and moved lower until he reached her centre. When he kissed her there, she breathed in sharply and grabbed his hands, holding on as if for dear life while he teased and pleasured her. Before it could be too much, he moved back up and her face was shining with sweat and her eyes wide. She released one of his hands and reached down to position him. He sank inside her with their eyes locked and couldn't look away as he started moving; couldn't look away as she threw her head back when he pushed one hand beneath her to hold her close and one between them to press his thumb against the little nub at her core; couldn't look away as her legs locked around him; couldn't look away even as her own eyes closed at the peak of her pleasure, his name on her lips, her hands digging into his shoulders with a strength a woman so small and slight shouldn't possess. Even when his own release hit him he kept staring at her, and when she looked back at him, she smiled with something that was triumph and love and joy all in one.

Ϡ

'So,' she said, her back against his chest in the generous bath tub. He felt no envy for her wealth, nor joy that it was his as well. None of that mattered. The true joy was her presence. 'You know why I'm here, which, I suppose, is to stumble into my lost husband. What's your excuse?'

He buried his nose in her hair and inhaled deeply. 'The plan was to help with the building of the railway. What actually happened is me working with an orthopaedist. You see, prosthetics nowadays are … clunky and heavy. He wants to make them from aluminium and he wants an engineer on his side.' He smiled. 'Now imagine if I had fallen into the ravine and had lost a leg and had made the first prototype for myself.'

Edith glared at him over her shoulder. 'The thought that you'd break and lose a leg made you laugh like that? You're madder than I thought.'

'That is quite mad, I'm sure.' He shook his head. 'No. I just … it would have been fitting. I'd have deserved that more than this.'

'Maybe. But it would be very inconvenient. Imagine having to get you out of there, to begin with. No. I'm glad I caught you.'

'Me too. In fact, I'd more likely be dead if I had fallen. And deserts aside, I prefer being alive. With you.' Thomas tightened his hold on her, his beloved, his wife, and fought down a wave of emotion that threatened to swallow him whole. 'Anyway, the orthopaedist. Funnily enough, he's not from here. He's from London. He's spent half a year here and is getting homesick, but he says he wants to remain a while longer. He's married a woman from here a bit ago, and he wants to give her more time to learn English.'

'And where do you want to be?'

Thomas considered for a moment. 'I can't go to England, unless I want to end on a noose.'

'Oh, you're wrong about that. You see, in the official report, the only perpetrator is Lucille. You didn't suspect a thing, focussed as you were on your machine.'

'What? Who … _you_ told them that? Why would you do that?'

Edith chuckled. 'I wondered about that, myself. I just … wanted them to think of you as a decent man when they buried you.'

'Better stupid than murderous. Shame we cannot bend the truth in our own memories. But to answer your initial question, I am home, and I do not mean this city by that.' He squeezed her. 'I'd like to keep working with him. If I can work my charm and persuade him to stay here, I'd be delighted. The language is a mouthful, but I'm working on it. But of course he's not the deciding factor.'

Edith turned in his arms and rested her chin on his chest. 'What's that, then?'

She knew the answer, Thomas could see that well enough. He brushed a stray strand of hair behind her ear. 'Edith, I'll follow you anywhere you want. You want to stay here, we stay here. You want to go to Buffalo, we go there. But I need to know … I need to know that you won't wake up one day, look at me, and realise what sort of monster shares your bed.'

'Thomas …'

'No, I need to say this. If you leave me now, I'll ache for the rest of my days, but … I'll survive it, somehow, because I was prepared to … do this on my own. If that happens in a year or more it will break what is left of me.'

Soft lips found his in a sweet, chaste kiss. 'I fully realise that you share the blame for what happened and I'm not trying to pretend that you don't. But I want you to realise that it's not as much as you think. You were Lucille's first victim, even though she didn't kill you. You saved Alan. You saved me. And you saved yourself. For each life that you helped take, you preserved another one.'

He couldn't for the life of him see himself the way she did. He remembered that stormy night so vividly, how he'd gone to Lucille, determined to put an end to her, just to falter at the sight of her. Would he falter again? He didn't think so, but the chance to prove himself was gone for good. 'You count me in that, too? I was useless.'

'You could have died by her hand. Surviving what you did took more strength and courage than ending yourself would have.' Thomas nodded slowly, wondering if she simply thought the way he did or if she knew him so well she could play him like an instrument. When she placed her head on his shoulder, he decided it didn't matter. 'I love you, Thomas Sharpe. You've been caught in a horror that's lasted all your life. If you ever truly want to be free, you need to leave that behind.'

Thomas sat up straight and pulled Edith into his lap so that she straddled him. He pressed his forehead to hers and lost himself in her eyes. 'And I love you, Edith Sharpe. Here or in London or anywhere else on this world, but always in the present and the future.'

When they got out of the water he watched it go down the drain. And with it, in his head, went all the blood, all the poison, the death, the lies. And finally, Lucille. They still had to talk about it all, come to terms with and account for the past, but together, they would manage. He let Edith wrap him in a towel when the last of the water was gone, feeling young and free and safe for the first time in his life.

* * *

 _((So yeah. I did this to have an opportunity to write smut for them. At least in part. I also wanted to use the two locations in here. (I'd planned them for a fic I doubt will ever happen, so they were free.) Now I can go back to write my Thorki fic, thank you very much._

 _Also, in a way, the movie and writing this has been incredibly cathartic._

 _Oh, and I offer my apologies to the brothers Marcel and Charles Desoutter, who developed the first aluminium prosthesis in 1912. Sorry, guys, in this version of history, Thomas Sharpe is a decade ahead of you.))_


End file.
